Numinous
by gypsymuse
Summary: What do you give the girl who's lost everything? The knowledge of what she's gained. MirokuXSango WAFF, one-shot. Complete.


10/27/04 revision: _Arigatou_ to my kind reviewers **faltering**, **Aino-kaachan** and **KagoKitty**. I'm still learning my way around this fandom, and your words of encouragement are very heartening!

The characters herein are the property of Takahashi-sensei; I just borrowed them for a time, and tried to put them back in better condition than they were in when I found them. Rated PG for more mature emotional content. Sango and Miroku WAFF, quasi-spiritual ruminations, and hope, springing eternal. Comments welcomed; this is my first offering in this fandom. :)

_**Numinous**_

an Inuyasha fanfic by

Lynn Gregg

_I am the one  
you keep meeting, as if  
for the very first time, forgetting  
we were inseparable before  
the world began._

_(#24, **The 300 Missing Poems of Han-Shan**, Mazie and Robert O'Hearn)_

The grass was wet beneath her feet as Sango slipped out of Kaede-sama's hut and headed toward the edge of the settlement. The air was still and cool, and the weak morning sun had not yet burned away the fog that wisped through the village and blanketed the valley beyond it. Things were just beginning to awaken as dawn ripened in the eastern sky, shifting through lavender to coral to turquoise edged in gold. Faint stirrings could be heard from within the scattered huts, birds and small animals rustling deep within the forest just beyond the village precincts. For the moment, poised between night and day, silence held, and carried with it the promise of peace.

She paused for a moment beneath Goshinbouku, pressing a hand to the scar marking the spot where Inuyasha was once pinned and looking over at the deceptive form of the old dry well; she had grown so accustomed to the incredible that she rarely paused to consider just how miraculous were the circumstances of her life and those of her chosen companions. She knew Kagome was planning to cross back through that well to her own time later that day, assuming she could "_osuwari_" Inuyasha long enough to make good her escape. Sango could almost hear Inuyasha's howls of protest already. He would pace and stomp and complain bitterly for the next day or so; and should Kagome not return within the agreed-upon time, he'd follow her and continue his pacing and stomping and complaining until she agreed to return with him. It was the way of things now, the arguments and the "_osuwari_s" and the racing back and forth from this time to that just the steps in a complex and oddly charming choreography. For all their constant bickering, the bond between the _hanyou_ and the human girl was obvious and abiding.

From her vantage point beneath the ancient tree, Sango could see another of her companions, seated cross-legged some distance away, facing the rising sun. The soft light refracted by the lingering mists cast a halo around him, reflecting cobalt from his dark hair and striking sparks from the golden rings of the _shakujou_ propped against his shoulder. There were bonds and there were bonds, and she had yet to determine the nature of the one she felt developing between herself and the wayward _houshi_. Infinitely more reserved than the impetuous and inflammatory half-demon, the young monk nonetheless was a mass of contradictions that left her confused and flustered most days; and yet, there was something else there, beneath the cool, frequently annoying exterior, something that drew her inexorably even as she vehemently denied being drawn.

It was really very exhausting. After a long day of dispatching demons, hunting for jewel shards, and plotting vengeance on Naraku, the last thing she wanted to deal with was trying to sort through her stupid feelings for the stupid grabby monk. Nothing in her _taijiya_ training had prepared her for the emotions she would eventually face once her childhood was behind her. She had naively assumed that the course of her life was fixed and inviolable; her anger at herself and the circumstances she could in no way have predicted now lashed her at odd moments, and inevitably her companions sometimes caught the backlash. Her efforts at control met with only limited success. Life had dealt her too much, too soon, and there was nothing in her makeup to help her make sense of it.

During their travels, it was easier; then, she had a goal on which to focus, much of her anger and frustration could be safely spent in battle, and the constant activity tired her so that sleep came readily and troublesome thoughts kept their distance. It was only between journeys, back in the relative safety of the village, that her thoughts and emotions became a burden to her. Then she fought not to snap at Kagome's good-natured meddling, at Inuyasha's petulance, at Shippou's hyperactivity, and above all at Miroku's offhand lechery. It bothered Sango far more than she'd ever let on, that her nerves were so raw and her temper so frayed; always, growing up among the _taijiya_, she had been a sunny-natured girl, eager and adaptable, and the changes she saw in herself were frightening. She knew, intellectually, that her touchiness was far from abnormal, considering all that she had experienced and all that she had lost--hell, it was nothing short of a miracle that she was both alive and sane! But her inability to contain the rush of emotions, the doubts and guilt and fears that plagued her in repose, still troubled her greatly. She longed for solace, but had little idea where to find what she sought.

Her eyes rested again on the still figure of the _houshi_: back straight, head slightly bowed, the hands deftly moving through the beads of his _mala_--not the one wrapped protectively around his right hand, but rather the strand she knew he kept in a small pouch tucked into the folds of his outer robe. She edged around the tree to get a clearer view of him: the startling violet-blue eyes closed, the face smooth and serene, lips slightly upturned as they moved through the repetitions of his mantra. How could he live as he did, then sit so silently, so at peace, smiling at the rising sun even as he knew he might not live to see its setting? Momentarily rapt, she relaxed against Goshinbouku, bark rough and wet and soft and cool all at once against her cheek. It was a tenuous peace, but more than she dared expect. The God-tree's strength was tangible to her skin, as was something else, the soft hum of its _ki_. There was comfort in the tree, and in Miroku's quiet presence, and in the slow opening of the day. Her own eyes drooped closed, and the tree bore her up, and it was only the sound of her own name, a mantra unto itself, that at last returned her from reverie.

Blinking, she found herself staring directly into Miroku's curious eyes, and Sango instantly felt her cheeks flame as if she'd been caught doing something unspeakable. He had left his seat and now leaned against the tree just inches away, watching her with a mixture of amusement and concern. "Forgive me," she murmured, dropping her eyes; she had killed a hundred _youkai_ fighting by his side yet still could not bring herself to meet the intensity of his warm gaze. "I did not mean to interrupt your meditations."

"You didn't," he assured her. "Why did you not come and sit with me? You know that I would welcome your company."

"As I said, I did not wish to interrupt. You--you seem so _complete_, when you sit in meditation."

"Just another illusion," said he, dismissively. "Is something troubling you? Each morning since our return you have come to the edge of the clearing; you watch as I perform my recitations, but you leave before I complete them, and--"

"How did you know?" she demanded, interrupting. "You've said nothing; I thought you were unaware."

"Sango, I am aware of more than you know. Even in deepest _zazen_, still I am alert for changes around me. I must be; that awareness has meant my survival on more than one occasion during my travels. This should come as no surprise to you. Surely you possess the same awareness; as _taijiya_, it would be a vital skill."

She considered this. "_Hai_, this is so. But it is--it is so natural to me that I don't even think of it." Relaxing again, she sank, automatically, into _seiza_ posture at the base of the tree. He settled cross-legged beside her, leaning back slightly to rest against the trunk.

"When you have become the thing, there is no need for thinking; just being is enough. In your training, you were taught this particular mindfulness, and now you have _become_ it. Just as I am, you are constantly alert to your surroundings, to shifts in the _ki_ around you, to the presence or absence of _youki_, to imminent threat. There is not such a great difference between you and I."

"Is there not? I was trained for war; you for peace. My great commission is to kill _youkai_; yours is to show compassion and mercy to all beings. No great difference, you say?"

"It is within our difference that the source of our sameness is revealed. For do I not also destroy, and do you not also show your compassionate heart?"

"Do I?" She asked rhetorically, and flinched in shock when a warm hand closed over hers.

"You are rightly assured of your skill in battle, but what of your worth beyond that? You must know how you are valued, by all of us--"

"It isn't that."

"Then what?"

"I--I fear what I am becoming. I don't understand myself anymore. So much has happened... I am so angry, all the time--sometimes it takes all my strength not to strike out at you--"

"You strike me often, Sango."

"Not like _that_. Houshi-sama, I am afraid of my anger, and the hatred that I feel. At first I welcomed it, knowing it would only aid me in battle, but now I fear it, because I fear that it will consume me--that it will twist me until I am no different from that which I hate. Some days, I think the change has already begun."

"Sango. Do you remember when you stole the Tetsusaiga?"

"How could I forget?"

"Yes, but _think_. Were your intentions not pure, you could not have touched it; the sword would not allow it. You have seen its reaction when the impure try to take it up. You were not repelled." He turned his body towards hers, tugging at the hand he still held firm within his grasp. She raised wet, dead eyes to him, for once not blushing or turning away. "And think on this, also: what of Kirara?"

"Kirara? What of her? She has been my companion since I was a child."

"Yes, and long before your birth or mine, she was the companion of Midoriko, a woman of unsurpassed holy power. Kirara is a very ancient creature, and a very noble one--and she is utterly devoted to you. Would such a creature show such devotion to one whose heart was not as pure and noble as her own?"

"I suppose not. But even so, I am still--oppressed, by the depth of all these things I'm feeling. I can't make sense of it, and I can't make it go away."

"No, you can't; but it can't make _you_ go away, either--not who you are in your deepest heart, in the place where all illusion falls away. I can see the darkness within you now, Sango, and I ache for you; but I can also see past it. And in time, that darkness will burn away, just as the early mists burn away each morning, leaving the world renewed. Your renewal awaits, as does mine--"

"I can't _wait_ a thousand lifetimes for it, houshi-sama!"

"Nor will you have to. If it were only you, or I, or even Inuyasha, facing this alone--" He looked at her meaningfully, and she nodded, understanding that _this_ meant _Naraku_ and a hundred other things unspoken. "In that case, it might be different. But we are not alone--you are not alone--your battle is my own, and mine is yours. I used to greet the dawn in _zazen_, wondering if I would live to see nightfall; but now I greet each day knowing that it might be the day of my release--and yours, and your brother's, and all of ours. My anger burns within me as well, but it does not consume me--it illumines my path, tears away shadows, fires my heart that I may continue the fight for all of our sakes. It can be so for you, too."

Her dark eyes, alive now and swimming with sorrow, searched his without shame. "Will you show me? Can you show me how?"

"Ah, but Sango, it is you who showed me. It will be my pleasure to return the favor."

He pulled again, gently, on their joined hands, and she allowed herself to be drawn. Her forehead against his shoulder, his cheek against the top of her head, they watched in silence as the last of the morning fog dispersed, revealing the brilliant promise of the day.

_We can touch, stare,  
flow into each other as  
light flows into itself  
at dawn, at dusk. _

_Two pieces of a puzzle  
fit together perfectly,  
leaving only one  
mystery. _

_(#4, ibid.)_

Completed 10/25/04; revised 10/27/04. My thanks to Aino-kaachan for catching my error and bringing it to my attention. The devil, as they say, is in the details, but so is the heart of the story. :)


End file.
